Pickle juice for muscle cramps: effective remedy or sports myth?

If you’ve ever been stopped dead in your tracks during exercise by a muscle cramp, you know you’ll try almost anything to make it stop. There have been countless theories and remedies put forward to explain and treat a dreaded muscle cramp, but science still has a bit of catching up to do. But there is one particular treatment that has been gaining traction by athletes as a secret weapon to treat cramps. And it is one that sounds more like a pregnancy craving than a sports supplement: it is pickle juice. Is this just another passing fad, or is there actual science behind downing a shot of pickle brine to uncramp a muscle? In this podcast episode, I’ll cut through the noise to look at the evidence and the surprising mechanism of how it may work and spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with electrolytes.Links referred to in the podcastPickle juice ingestion in electrically induced muscle cramps  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19997012AIS fact sheet on pickle juice https://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition/supplements/group_b/tastants/transient-receptor-potential-channel-agonistsEpisode transcriptTo access the full episode transcript, go to the following link and select the individual podcast episode and then click on the ‘Transcript’ tab https://thinkingnutrition.buzzsprout.comConnect with meInstagram doctimcroweFacebook Thinking NutritionX CroweTim